The identity of the Australian hacker who had 'rickrolled' jailbroken iPhones with the 'iKee' virus is now revealed. It is 21 year old Ashley Towns from Wollongong, Australia.
Ashley, who is a student at TAFE, says he had created the virus merely as a prank and to make people aware of security holes.
Speaking to ABC News, Ashley said,
"When people jailbreak their phone, it allows them to install a service on their phone called SSH. Generally you should always change your password after setting up on the iPhone as all iPhones use the same password.This virus pretty much exploits people's laziness to change their password"
With this, the iPhone platform has seen its first virus attack and while there has not been anymalicious intent in this particular case, it surely has put the issue of security to the fore. With the apparent ease with which the 'iKee' virus spread, we can expect a lot of black hat hackers to sit up and take notice of other similar security flaws that may be exploited.
While the iKee virus only compromised jailbroken iPhones, it still has the potential to undermine Apple's stand on security. It was recently revealed that Apple was on the lookout for an 'iPhone OS platform security manager'. The yet-to-be-appointed security manager already have their task cut out to find ways to prevent iPhones from getting jailbroken.
However, jailbroken iPhones is not the only area Apple has to be worried about. We had recently reported of Apple approved iPhone apps that harvested user cellphone numbers which, though not an explicit security threat, still compromise the privacy of the user. And for Apple to assure customers that their handsets are secure enough, this is one another area they must be looking into.
How do you rate the security of the iPhone platform? Do you think more attacks are possible? Please tell us in the comments.
[via ABC News]
